Flue-brush



(No Model.) 2 Sheets-Sheet l.

E. M. MILLER & L. B. SHULTZ. FLUE BRUSH.

No. 431,526. Patented July I 1890.

2 Sheets-Sheet 2. E. M. MILLER & L. B. SI-IULTZ.

FLUE BRUSH.

Patented July 1,1890.

lg A

(No Model.)

[VUWTQZZX a 1% UNITED STATES PATENT OFFIcE.

EUGENE M. MILLER AND LLEWVELLYN B. SI-IULTZ, OF ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI;

SAID MILLER ASSIGNOR TO CHARLES A. PILLEY,

MISSOURI.

OF IRON MOUNTAIN,

FLUE-BRUSH.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 431,526, dated July 1, 1890.

Application filed April 18, 1890- To all whom it may concern.- 7

Be it known that We,EUGENE M. MILLER and LLEWELLYN B. SHULTZ, of St. Louis, Missouri, have jointly made a new and useful Improvement in Flue-Brushes, of which the following is a full, clear, and eXact clescription.

Our improvement relates to wire fluebrushes, and especially to that class of wire flue-brushes in which the wires are held in an elongated cylindrical head, which in turn is attached to the brush-handles; and the improvement consists partly in the mode of constructing the brush-head, whereby the head is materially strengthened and the wires arranged to form a more perfect scraping-surface. In forming such a brush-head the practice hitherto has been to make it of cast-iron staves, which are assembled and confined in a cylindrical form and perforated to receive the wires. The perforations must be made quite close together, and by reason of this the head is materially weakened, and in use the head is liable to be broken; nor can the staves very well be made thick enough to withstand the strains it is subjected to, partly because it is thereby made unduly heavy, partly because it becomes quite expensive to drill the needed perforations in the head, and partly because the perforations in the thickened staves cannot easily be pointed, so that the tufts of the brush shall project properly from the head.

WVe largely, if not entirely, overcome the difficulty referred to by means of our improved method, which consists in forming the brush-head of wrought-metal staves, and more particularly described as follows: We take fiat pieces of wrought metal of the proper size, but in thickness considerably thinner than the requisite thickness of the completed stave, then perforate these thin pieces separately to form the desired perforations for the brushtufts, then curve the perforated pieces into the form of staves, and then, if not before, produce a stave of the needed thickness by laying one stave part within anotherone, two, three, or more-until the said thickness is obtained, care being taken tohave the per- Serial No. 348,552. (No model.)

forations in the successively-arranged staves coincide in order that the Wires of the tufts may be held in the combined stave parts, and then, having obtained in the manner described a strong properly-perforated brush head filled with wires, the staves are by suitable means attached to the brush-handle.

The improvement further relates to the means whereby the brush is enabled to pre sent a more continuous scraping-surfacein the direction in which it is moved in the flues, all substantially as is hereinafter set forth and claimed, aided by the annexed drawings, making part of this specification, in which- Figure 1 is a cross-section of a perforated brush-head stave in the fiat; Fig. 2,a similar section of the stave curved; Fig. 3, a plan of a flat stave; Fig. 4, a side iew of a twisted stave; Fig. 5,a side elevation of the improved flue-brush, a portion of the wires being removed; Fig. 6, a longitudinal section of the brush, and Fig. 7 a cross-section of the brush.

The views are not all upon the same scale, and the same letters of reference denote the same parts.

A, Figs. 1 and 3, represents one of the staves composing the improved brush. The perforations are shown at a a, and the stave has not yet been curved. In Fig. 2 it is shown curved to the proper shape to be united with one or more other curved staves to form the brushhead. In Fig. 6 the mode of arranging two or more of the staves A A to form the needed thickness of staves is shown. v Now, the brush might be completed by inserting the wire tufts B B in the staves and uniting the combined staves to the brush-handle C; but to more completely carry out the improvement we prefer, after the staves have been made as described, to proceed further and to twist the staves into the spiral form shown in Figs. t and 5, for by reason of this spiral form imparted to them, the staves are enabled to hold the tufts B B, so that viewed endwise the brush shall present a substantially continuous set of tufts, or at least a set of tufts having narrower openings between the tufts than heretofore has been practicable. The staves thus constructed and thus filled with against the outer end of the cone, all substantially as shown.

A further additional feature of the brush is shown in Fig. 7. Two staves A A are preferably used to form the brush-head. To enable the tufts immediately along the joints G Gbetween the abutting edges of the staves to radiate to better advantage for the pur pose of producinga continuous brush-surface, we preferably make the staves A A, when bent, to form a curve slightly more than a semicircle, whereby a brush-head of the form shown in Fig. 7 (slightly flattened at the joints G G) is produced, and the tufts upon the opposite sides of said joints, respectively, pre-' vented from gaping apart.

F, substantially as set forth.

3. In a flue-brush, a brush-head composed of staves attached to the brush-handle, said staves being flattened slightly at the joints between said staves, substantially as described.

WVitness our hands this 8th day of April,

EUGENE M. MILLER. LLEWELLYN B. SHULTZ.

Witnesses:

O. D. MOODY, B. F. REX. 

